HP Designjet 4000 and 4500 Printer Series - Custom Page Sizes

The HP Designjet 4000 PS3 driver and the HP Designjet 4500 Windows drivers (PS3 and HP-GL/2) are based on a new driver platform, which is common for both LaserJet and Business Inkjet printers. The drivers behave differently when compared to their behavior on the current driver platforms with regard to Custom Page Size creation.

The main differences are:

• When the driver is installed locally, the new driver enables the user to create an unlimited number of custom page sizes, while the previous driver platform was only able to create five.
• When the driver is installed in a Print Server and shared to Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows 2000 clients, the new driver does not allow the clients to create custom page sizes by default, unless the necessary permissions are granted to them.

The process of creating Custom Page Sizes (CPS) is different in driver versions (60.x.x.x HP-GL/2 driver for Designjet 4500 and PS drivers for Designjets 4000/4500 with respect to drivers 6.x/4.x).

• In driver 60.x.x.x, Custom Page Sizes are created as forms in the Operating System.
• In drivers 6.x / 4.x, Custom Page Sizes are created temporarily in the memory.

Creating Custom Page Sizes as forms will have the following advantages:

• It is possible to create, name and modify as many forms as required, so there is no limit in the quantity of custom page sizes that can be created.
• Custom page sizes created as forms will also be available to other printer queues and to applications.
• Custom page sizes created as forms are permanent. Once the job has been printed, the custom page size remains in the system, ready to be used by a future job.

note:

When the driver 60.x.x.x is installed on a print server, and shared on Microsoft Windows 2000, XP clients, data exchange takes place, which is important.

Managing CPS as forms involves creating CPS by creating forms in the server. By default, most users do not have sufficient permissions to create forms, and this can result in the following:

• The users will not be allowed to create custom page sizes in client/server installations.
• The Custom Page Size dialog will not appear in the driver’s user interface in the client.

To allow clients to create custom page sizes when the 60.x.x.x driver is installed on a print server, the clients need to have 'Manage printers' rights on the print queue that is using the 60.x.x.x driver. To achieve this, one of the following can be applied:

1. Give 'Manage printers' rights to all users by following the steps given below:
   1. In the Server, access the printer’s queuing properties.
   2. In the Security tab, give 'Manage printers' permissions to the 'Everyone' group.
2. Include the users who need to create Custom page sizes in the 'Print Operators' group. The Print Operators group is the recommended Microsoft guideline to allow users to create forms in the print server. All users in the 'Print Operators' group will have permissions to 'Manage printers' and 'Manage documents' for all shared queues on the server. So, the users will be able to create custom page sizes and act on the spooler’s queue jobs.
3. Create a new users group with 'Manage printers' permissions (and without 'Manage documents' permissions). Assign users who need to create custom page sizes to that group. This will allow these users to create forms in the server but not to modify the spooler’s queue jobs.

The three options listed above give client computers enough permission to create custom page sizes. They are the recommended solutions to create custom page sizes in the client/server installations.

If none of the above options are acceptable, the following is a list of workarounds to print custom pages in client/server configurations:

1. Create custom page sizes in the Print Server.

   note:

   The task should be performed on demand by a user with Administrator or Power User rights.

2. Create a maximum page size in the Server and then use this custom page size in the Clients with the 'Save Roll paper' feature. For example, if a 42 x 100 inches page size was created in the server, then a client could print any custom size job by selecting this page size and then instructing the printer to cut only the paper necessary to print the job contents.
3. Install drivers locally.